First Minister visits NHS Orkney to celebrate and recognise the hard work of staff

Posted on:

First Minister with colleagues from NHS Orkney in the Radiology Department

Today we welcomed First Minister, John Swinney, to NHS Orkney, and shared our journey of improvement and how our staff are looking after our community and providing excellent care to patients.

Mr Swinney was met at The Balfour by our Board Chair, Meghan McEwen and Chief Executive, Laura Skaife-Knight. He was taken on a tour of The Balfour, hearing from staff in a number of departments, including Maternity, Emergency Department, Inpatients 2 Ward and Radiology – with staff sharing what they are proud of and their many achievements as well as our challenges and how we are responding to them.

First Minister John Swinney said: “The Balfour is an incredibly impressive building – being the country’s first hospital built to a net-zero standard. Meeting staff here today, it is clear to me the dedication and the pride each of them has in the work that they do. It is also clear that there is a lot of excellent progress being made to reduce waiting times, shift more care into the community and deliver the best services for Orkney residents.”

Laura Skaife-Knight, NHS Orkney Chief Executive, said: “It was a pleasure to show Mr Swinney around our wonderful hospital, and for him to hear first hand from patients and staff about the great work we are doing here in Orkney and our determination to make continuous improvements for our patients and community. Whilst we have our challenges, we have responses to these, and today was about hearing more about these, about how we are working with our partners locally and neighbouring Health Boards regionally and in collaboration to bring improvements. As well as celebrating and recognising the progress and positive steps forward we are making at NHS Orkney for our community.

The First Minister recently announced a number of top national priorities, including reducing waiting times for planned care and delays when patients are ready to transfer from acute (hospital) care, shifting more care from hospital to community, digitising and innovating and improving productivity and efficiency. We are committed to delivering all of these as these are also priorities for us here in Orkney.”

Today provided an opportunity to talk about in more detail about how we are addressing these priorities in Orkney and with this set out our local context as an island Health Board.

Mr Swinney took time to thank staff across NHS Orkney and to celebrate our many achievements, including:

  • Melissa Lindsey being awarded Midwife of the Year at the recent national Scotland Health Awards
  • Our Green Maternity programme which decreases the need further for parents and newborns to travel to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary (ARI)
  • Dr Wendy Corstorphine, Runner-Up in Inspirational Role Model category in the Annual National Education for Scotland (NES) Medical Directorate Awards for her work in leading Medical Education for NHS Orkney. NHS Orkney recently received national praise and a letter of commendation confirming that our students receive an excellent experience on placement in Orkney
  • Moira Sinclair, Clinical Nurse Manager, who last year marked 40 years’ service to the NHS, including NHS Orkney
  • Radiology Team – innovations in this service and securing funding to continue our on-island MRI scanner provision for our community